“He that descended is the
same also that ascended far above all the heavens, that
he might fill all things” (Ephesians 4:10).

“He put all things in
subjection under his feet, and gave him to be head over
all things to the church, which is his body, the fulness
of him that filleth all in all” (Ephesians 1:22,23).

“Finally, be
strong in the Lord, and in the strength of his might...
For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but
against the principalities, against the powers, against
the world-rulers of this darkness, against the hosts of
wicked spirits in the heavenlies” (Ephesians
6:10,12).

The first passage sets forth the
eternal intention of God that His Son should “fill
all things”.

The second passage indicates the
instrument by which that fulness is to be ministered:
“the church, which is his body”.

Now, with the third of these
passages, we come to the consummate conflict which rages
against the purpose and against the vessel of its
fulfilment.

The apostle introduces this summing
up at the end of the letter in this way, with this word:
“Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength
of his might”, and it is necessary for us to remind
ourselves that that word “finally” is not what
we mean when we use it. When we say “Finally”
we mean “Now lastly”, the third point in a
sermon, but that is not the meaning of the word here. It
is a bigger and more comprehensive word than that. The
apostle is really saying: “Well, now, in view of all
that, from henceforth... with all that in view, from now
onward” ... “be strong in the Lord and in the
strength of his might.” The word of a great résumé
by a great retrospect.

So we should regard this part of the
letter, from verse ten of chapter six in this
arrangement, as a gathering up of all that has preceded
it. The apostle is saying: “All that I have set down
becomes the occasion and the ground of a tremendous
conflict. This whole thing, comprehensively, and in all
its parts, is something which is challenged, withstood,
fought against.” You notice that he does not say to
us, or to the church: “There is a big fight on.”
He just takes that for granted. He does not have to say
that to anybody who knows anything about it! But he does
say that this wrestling that we are in, this fact
of conflict, is not of a mundane, temporal character at
all. It is with “principalities... powers...
world-rulers of this darkness... hosts of wicked spirits
in the heavenlies”. It relates, then, in the first
place, to the ultimate purpose which we have considered
more or less fully in the previous two chapters, this
ultimate purpose set forth in those words: “(He)
ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill
all things” — according to the eternal purpose,
according to the counsel of God’s Will, in
accordance with the design and determination of God
“that he might fill all things”. And that has
ever and always been the comprehensive occasion of all
spiritual conflict. It is against that ultimate purpose.
Anything and everything will be resorted to by this whole
mighty system of antagonism to that purpose to try and
defeat it, to delay it, to contradict it, to distract
from it — anything and everything to negative that
purpose “That He might fill all things”.

Now we must look into this more
closely and see the essentials of triumph. The battle is
real: it is a fact. But we are not left without
enlightenment and instruction as to the essentials of
triumph, and the first is to recognise fully the realm
and nature of this spiritual warfare. Five times in this
letter the apostle uses the phrase “heavenlies”.
The first is: “(He) hath blessed us with every
spiritual blessing in the heavenlies” (Ephesians
1:3), and the last shows us where our warfare is —
it is in the heavenlies (Ephesians 6:12).

Now, because of the difficulty in
our minds with a word like that, it is necessary to pause
and explain.

You see, this is not a geographical
realm at all. This is not a literal realm. This is a
spiritual realm. This is not talking about heaven. This
is talking about the heavenlies, which is something
different. It is reported that Mr. Kruschev recently, in
his anti-God, anti-Christian mockery, said that he had
told his spaceman, when he went into outer space, to have
a look round everywhere to see if he could find this
“paradise”. When the spaceman came back he
reported that he had looked everywhere for it, but could
find no trace of it. Mr. Kruschev, with a sneer, said:
“Of course not. It is all fiction: it is all
nonsense.” To say such a thing betrays him! It shows
how utterly ignorant he is of the thing which is nearest
to him and in which he himself lives his life. This
“heavenlies” is not somewhere up there in the
clouds at all. It is right here where we are. It is right
down here, and it is of two orders. You don’t have
to go up in a plane, or anything like that, and get
somewhere above this earth in order to get where the
apostle means. You know quite well that this thing, this
sinister thing, this evil thing, this deadly thing, this
dark, paralysing thing, can come in anywhere. It can
invade any place, and you can know quite well, any day,
anywhere, that there is an awful system of evil in this
universe, not somewhere remote, but right down here,
pressing upon your body, pressing upon your mind, and
sometimes it almost seems as if it has got inside of you.

On the other hand — blessed be
God! — it is possible for the other kind of “heavenlies”
to be right here, pressing upon us — that glorious,
blessed “heavenlies” of Christ, with its joy,
its peace, its rest and its relief, and you don’t
have to go up somewhere to find it. It is there, right
there, where we are.

This “heavenlies”, of
whatever of the two kinds it may be, is a spiritual
realm, which descends upon us and presses upon us.
Sometimes it is the beautiful, heavenly realm which comes
and lifts us, as it were, into itself. It is a great joy
when we are together in the Lord! Sometimes the other
thing, the evil, antagonistic, inimical thing, seems to
be all around us, pressing right down upon us.

That is what is meant by the “heavenlies”
in this letter.

I think we need a little
brainwashing over this matter, don’t we? When we
read that word “heavenlies”, we always think of
heaven, and then people begin to say, “You are so
heavenly! You are no earthly good! Your feet are off the
earth. You are up in the clouds.” Now, be careful
about such nonsensical talk, because this thing is a
desperately real matter. It is right down here, this
“heavenlies”. It is a state, it is a spiritual
condition, it is a spiritual power and force, not a
location. A dear sister here, many years ago, said she
would never go up in an aeroplane because that would be
invading the devil’s realm! You see, it is imperfect
understanding. You are invading the devil’s realm
every time you pray, every time you get down on your
knees.

Well, you see, this word “heavenlies”
means the reality of spiritual things, the reality of
spiritual force, the reality of spiritual forces, the
reality of spiritual influence, the tensions — and
how real they are! Spiritual tensions. But there is this
extra feature. These forces are not just naked, abstract
forces: they are very intelligent forces. They know how
to time things. They know when to get you off your guard.
They know your weak moments. They are very intelligent
forces. That is the meaning of the “heavenlies”.

Now, what is the immediate object of
these antagonistic forces? It is to unseat believers from
their spiritual position, which is put here: “(He
hath) made us to sit with him in the heavenlies”
(Ephesians 2:6). In other words, he has put us, in union
with Christ, into a spiritual realm which is above —
a spiritually-above position, a position of spiritual
ascendancy in Christ. The immediate object of the forces
of evil is to unseat the church, and to thrust or press
it down so that there is an on-drive upon the church
spiritually, an on-drive upon the body of Christ, to
separate it from its true position in Christ and bring it
down, anyhow, but bring it down.

Well, you don’t need to have
that argued further. You know enough about that, and you
are destined to know a great deal more if you go on. We
are defining, explaining, the nature of this consummate
conflict.

You will come then to the varied
“wiles”, as the apostle calls them here: “That
ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.”
They are too many for any man to count, and I would be
altogether out of my depth if I tried to enumerate them.
But there are a few that it may be helpful to mention.

The first is to get us out of our
rightful standing and position in Christ. What is that?
It is the position and standing of justified ones, of
those who are, in Christ, righteous, against whom no
charge can be levelled. Now Paul says that definitely and
distinctly in his letter to the Romans: “Who shall
lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? ...It is
Christ Jesus that died” (Romans 8:33,34). Justified
and righteous ones by faith in Jesus Christ. And the
first object, or wile, of the enemy is to get us off that
ground, and make us accept judgment and condemnation and
accusation and come under an awful sense of death,
because God has got everything against us, He is not for
us any longer. This is a battle indeed! Hence the apostle
says: “Put on the breastplate of righteousness”
(Ephesians 6:14). Your whole vitals need to be covered in
this matter, and it is indeed a matter of the vitals of
the Christian life. If only the evil forces can get an
entrance with accusation and condemnation, bring us under
a sense of judgment and turn the truth of God into a lie,
saying: “God is not for you. God is against you,”
they have undone us indeed. We are down! No one will ever
be able to put up any fight if they have lost that
ground. It is the first wile. “Wherefore... put on
the breastplate of righteousness” — His
righteousness. It is ours.

I am keeping closely to this letter
— “Giving diligence to keep the unity of the
Spirit” (Ephesians 4:3). The assault upon unity is
one of the devil’s most strategic attacks and
methods. You know that any general, in common warfare,
has one law, one principle, which governs him when he
faces an enemy. It is this: “Divide and conquer”.
If only you can split up those forces and set them apart,
destroy their unity, their cohesion, the battle is yours.
Divide and conquer! And doesn’t this great enemy
know that, the value of that! Divide... once that has
begun confusion follows very soon, and we are out of
touch with one another. When the army is out of touch
with its supports, confusion follows. And then what comes
with the confusion, or follows right on its heels? The
whole of the fighting forces are turned in upon
themselves with their own internal problems — what
we called in the previous chapter “corporate
introspection”. Occupation with your own selves and
your own troubles, your own difficulties. And doesn’t
the enemy delight when he sees the forces of God in a
state like that, divided, confused and all tied up with
their own problems and difficulties! Indeed a wile of the
devil! So the word is: “Giving diligence to keep the
unity of the Spirit.”

Another thing in this system of
adversity is to make the Lord’s people put secondary
causes in the place of first causes. You wonder what is
meant by that. It is to put certain situations and
conditions down to secondary causes, to blame somebody,
and say: “It is this, or that, or something else.
This is why it is.” And we get our eyes on people.
We get our eyes on what they say and what they do. We get
our eyes on events and happenings. We just become
obsessed with the things that are around us —
secondary causes — and we fail to see that right
behind and through these things there is a first cause,
which is “principalities... powers... world-rulers
of this darkness”. And mark you, this thing can be
carried a long way. I don’t like saying some of the
things that I am going to say, but I must, with courage
and faithfulness, say them.

It is possible to put down the devil’s
work to God! Terrible things are happening, and then we
say “Oh, no, of course it is not the devil: it is
the Lord. The Lord is doing something. This is the Lord.
Don’t attribute it to the devil.” It is possible
to do that.

Now, I want to pursue that, to
examine that. The one point of enquiry about any
situation should always be: “What is its effect?”
Put that in another way: “Is this to the glory of
God or to the dishonour of the Lord?” You remember
that when the Lord was here and He was casting out
demons, His enemies said: “By Beelzebub the prince
of devils casteth he out devils” (Luke 11:15). The
Lord Jesus took them up on a matter of logic, sheer, pure
logic: “If Satan also is divided against himself,
how shall his kingdom stand?” (Luke 11:18). “A
house divided against a house falleth.” (Luke
11:17). Logic! The devil is not throwing himself out! Now
then, pass that over. Does God cast out God? Does God
bring dishonour upon Himself? Does God destroy Himself?
The answer is quite clear: No! Never! God
will never do anything which will bring shame,
dishonour or reproach upon His own name. He is far too
jealous for His name. Therefore, if anything is having
that effect, you should suspect it. You should pierce it
right to its core and heart: “This thing is
dishonouring to the Lord. This thing is a reproach to His
name. This thing is evil. This thing is
destructive of spiritual and heavenly values. Therefore
it cannot be of God.” We must make that
enquiry always and be very faithful about it and see
exactly where the thing must be attributed.

Secondary causes are a favourite
method of the enemy to cover himself up, to hide himself,
and make us think that it is... well, you know, difficult
people, difficult things, all this and the other, and all
the time it is this evil, sinister thing behind provoking
these things, stimulating these things, but they are not
just the beginning and the end in themselves. You will
see what that will lead to in a moment.

Another thing that comes out in this
letter quite clearly as one of the enemy’s great
masterpieces is that he keeps the Lord’s people from
light, from getting light. He keeps them in the dark,
keeps them blind, keeps them ignorant. Now that comes out
in this letter through the apostle’s prayer —
and he doesn’t come into the battle as he ends the
letter: he is in it right from the beginning. It is
because of this that he wrote the letter at all. There is
a terrific battle, and so early in the letter he says:
“Making mention of you in my prayers; that the God
of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give
unto you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the
knowledge of him: having the eyes of your heart
enlightened, that ye may know”... that you may
know... and the third time... that you may know.
(Ephesians 1:16-19). Oh, it is of immense consequence
that you know, that you “have the eyes of your heart
enlightened”, that you know. Blindness,
ignorance in this realm of spiritual things as to God’s
purpose, as to God’s means of realising it, as to
God’s ways of accomplishing it, is a master thing in
the hands of the enemy. It always has been, right from
the very beginning. Elsewhere this apostle says: “the
god of this world hath blinded the minds of the
unbelieving, that the light of the gospel of the glory of
God, should not dawn upon them” (2 Corinthians 4:4).
And this apostle’s very commission was couched in
these words: “To open their eyes, that they may turn
from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto
God” (Acts 26:18). Oh, the immense value of
spiritual illumination to the Lord, to the church! And
the immense value of spiritual ignorance to the devil! Be
careful, therefore, about this matter, and stand: “Withstand...
and, having done all, to stand” (Ephesians 6:13) for
this matter of spiritual illumination, enlightenment. I
can visualise that apostle in his imprisonment not just
offering a simple petition, but on his knees — as we
say — wrestling: “God, I pray, grant Your
spirit of wisdom and revelation.” The importance of
this thing is incalculable.

There are many other wiles, and I
will mention another before I come to sum up.

It is this wearing out business. You
know it occurs in the prophecies of Daniel: “He...
shall wear out the saints of the Most High” (Daniel
7:25). Ah, yes, sapping life, wearing down. It is the
long-term business of these forces. Whether we are always
aware of it or not, whether we are always alive to it or
not, whether we always take it in this way or not, here
is the fact: that very often our state of exhaustion
cannot be accounted for on any other ground than the
action of spiritual forces.

And that can be proved. Oh, some of
us know what we are talking about in this matter:
physical exhaustion, mental exhaustion, spiritual
exhaustion, to the point of just giving up — going
to bed, flopping into the arm-chair, and doing no more:
“I just cannot. It is not in me. I have not got the
strength. I have not got the energy to go to that
meeting, to go into that ministry, to undertake that
piece of work. I just cannot do it.” Now, have you
ever put that to the test and laid hold of God for
resurrection life, for divine energy, and gone in faith,
laying hold of the Lord? What has been the result? Oh, a
mighty accession of life! Afterwards you have felt more
life than at your best times naturally. It is a mighty
uplift. You see, this we are talking about is a battle,
and the enemy wants us just to surrender, to give up, to
accept the situation. Flop — I cannot: “But
thou”, the apostle says to Timothy, “lay hold
on the life eternal” (1 Timothy 6:11,12). And it is
marvellous, just marvellous, what has been done by this
supernatural inflow of divine life when naturally the
whole thing was an impossibility.

Now, I am speaking the truth, it is
a fact. This sapping, exhausting, draining work has got
to be countered by a positive action of faith. We must
lay hold of Him, who is our life, to get through at all.

To conclude: what is the inclusive
counter of all this and the much more that is against,
that constitutes this conflict, this warfare? The apostle
gives it to us. When he has told us the realm and nature
of the warfare: when he has told us all the points at
which the enemy attacks, as represented by the different
pieces of armour — spiritual points in the life
— and said “Withstand... and, having done
all... stand”, he says: “Praying at all seasons
in the Spirit, and watching thereunto in all perseverance
and supplication for all the saints” (Ephesians
6:18). Praying! But, you notice it is fighting
prayer, because it is in the realm of battle. It is
prayer that relates to this whole conflict. How much the
enemy has succeeded in doing mischief and harm —
robbery and spoliation by robbing the church of its
fighting prayer! There is any kind of prayer but fighting
prayer! Fill up all your time with all sorts of things,
but don’t come out in fighting prayer, corporately,
against the forces of evil! They are out to smother that,
rob you of that. Oh, how we have seen and watched the
church going into all these troubles because it has lost
its fighting power in prayer! It is true. Really putting
up a collective, a corporate resistance to all these
things, together getting down to it, standing and
withstanding in prayer. “Whom resist” (1 Peter
5:9), says the Word. Yes, fighting prayer has got to be
recovered, or all these things that we have mentioned are
going to triumph: divisions, confusions, corporate
introspection, misjudging situations, the sapping of
life, the withholding of life. All these things are going
to succeed until we reach this point to which the apostle
brings the whole thing: “Praying at all seasons”
— but battling prayer, fighting prayer.

I am afraid that many, many
Christians don’t know what you mean when you use
that language. It is a strange phraseology to many. And I
know for a fact that there are a great many who dislike
it and resent you speaking about it. One of the specious
arguments is: “The Lord is on the throne. The Lord
is Lord over all. He is sovereign. He is doing His will.
Why worry? Why fight? Why take this thing on so
seriously?” How specious! It is in the Bible that
this warfare has got to be carried to its triumphant
issue by way of prayer, and it is the church that is here
in view in this letter — the church at prayer.

Oh, the Lord bring us in a new way
on to this ground of standing together in prayer against
this many-sided destructive work of the principalities
and powers and hosts of wicked spirits! May we recover
our fighting prayer, and we will see what happens —
and that will be the glorious experience of the church to
see that the absolute supremacy of the Lord Jesus is a
reality, but it works through a church on its knees.